Word: kopkind
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...when you see a fascist behind every rock. I know quite a few people who count themselves as politically active, and to a man (or woman) they're all a touch paranoid. But to call Alice Cooper and their ABC-WBCN simulcast a harbinger of creeping facism, as Andrew Kopkind did in last week's Phoenix, strikes me as so much hysterical over-reacting...
This concerns Alice Cooper and the simulcast insofar as both media are visual. Kopkind's complaint is not so much over the simulcast as it is with Alice Cooper's particular appearance on it. (If he finds creeping fascism in the Allman Brother's brilliant performance last week, then he's in worse shape than I gave him credit for), On the highest level, his major complaint is with Alice Cooper's performance, and what he assumes is gratuitous violence similar to that displayed in the films. More on that later...
Because on another level, Kopkind does call the simulcast system "a bastard technological system," and short step shy of the 'feelies'''. That's ridiculous, Simulcast is an interesting advance in technology. At this point in time it isn't more. I grant its sinister possibilities, but I haven't seen them realized...
...Kopkind's insistence on the dehumanizing aspects of simulcast are purist. There are three points to be made. The first is in essential agreement. Insofar as TV dehumanizes, the viewer-listener is up against a wall, there is very little he can do in the face of what is obviously a profit-oriented attempt to cash in on the popularity of rock. Widening its accessibility translates very easily into dollars. I had intended to count commercials last Friday, but I lost count way before 36. The steady stream of commercials is a tribute to the greed of the media powers...